


Through the Window

by RogueBelle



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mad Swan, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:19:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tentative camaraderie builds to smoldering heat. An only-partially reformed Jefferson takes advantage of an unlocked window (that just happens to lead to Emma's bedroom), ostensibly for the good of Storybrooke -- but brimming with ulterior motives. // Chapter Three: When Jefferson finds he can't stay away, and Emma discovers she doesn't want him to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First: In which a line is crossed

The first time he crawled through her window in the middle of the night, there had ostensibly been a good reason for it. Electronic communication had become patchy and unreliable since the arrival of magic in Storybrooke, and Jefferson had wanted to alert Emma _without_ drawing the attention of half the neighbourhood by pounding on her door. And he had, at least, knocked; he hadn't waited for a response before coming on through, but he had knocked.

"There's something going on down by the cemetery," he said, without preamble.

It was fortunate for his well-being that Emma had not been asleep yet; she had been sitting on her bed with Henry's book open in her lap. Brow furrowed, she turned towards Jefferson, too alarmed by his words to chide him for the home invasion. "Who would be at the cemetery this time of night?"

"I have no idea," he admitted. "They were backlit, so I could only see silhouettes. Honestly, I don't even know who – or what – is in that cemetery. The gravestones go back centuries. Storybrooke, obviously, doesn't."

"Well, maybe it's all, y'know… fakes," Emma suggested, shrugging. "Just tombstones above empty graves. Dirt."

Jefferson gave her a look that was somewhere between withering and pitying. "Emma. With all that's gone on in the past few weeks, do you really believe you're that _lucky_?"

She pursed her lips, considering that. "Given what's happened in the past few weeks, I would say that grave-robbing and potential necromancy would be par for the course." She stood, grabbing her jacket off the back of a chair. "C'mon, then. If we manage to halt a crime – or worse – in progress, I might be convinced to overlook your unreformed Peeping-Tom status." Then she glanced back at the open window, gesturing for him to shut it. "To say nothing of breaking and entering."

"I didn't _break_ anything," Jefferson objected, closing the window with ostentatious gentleness before following her out.

Emma had never really given the cemetery in Storybrooke much thought before, but as she and Jefferson hopped the low boundary fence, slipping quietly towards the sound of voices in the distance, she realised just how odd it was. She had always thought of New England cemeteries as thoroughly, well, Puritanical, stark and somber. Many of the tombstones she was passing, though, had elaborate carvings on them: winged skulls, hand clasped in prayer, curlicues of flowers and vines, angels and demons, suns and moons and leaves. Odder still were the mausoleums, the above-ground tombs, more typically a feature, she had thought, of the Deep South, of areas prone to flooding.

It was part, she reminded herself, of the adjustment her brain had had to make since she'd accepted the curse, the magic, and everything else. Things in Storybrooke were the way they were for a reason. There was a purpose to this graveyard; it had been arranged, whether by Regina or by the curse itself. She wasn't sure she was anxious to find out what that purpose was.

There were, as Jefferson had told her, a pair of hooded figures near one of those enormous tombs. They had cleared an area around it, scraping the grass away from the dirt, sprinkling a white powder that Emma really hoped was salt around the perimeter of the circle. And now, they appeared to be waiting. One was smoking a cigarette, the other twirled a crowbar absent-mindedly in his hand.

Emma started towards them, hand drifting towards her gun, but a sudden weight caught her across the chest and flattened her against the cold, time-worn stone of a mausoleum. It took her a second to realise that Jefferson had jerked her out of action, clamping his hand over her mouth. He could move alarmingly fast when he wanted to, something that startled Emma and that she found far more compelling than she liked to admit. The heat of his body pressed against hers made her pulse beat faster -- though the fierce glare in his eyes rather dampened any flickering arousal. "What," he asked, in an aggravated whisper, "are you doing?"

He lifted his fingers just enough to let her respond. "I'm still the Sheriff, magic or no magic," Emma hissed back. "They're trespassing. I'm going to arrest them."

An expression of incredible frustration – one she was becoming accustomed to seeing on his face – formed, and Jefferson took a deep, slightly huffing breath. "Well, _Sheriff_ , you might want to wait long enough to find out if we're dealing with common thugs or with thugs who might turn into monsters or start throwing balls of black fire at us."

"Does it matter? We're not any better prepared for it if they are."

"Do you think we should maybe find out who – or what – they're waiting _for_?"

"Not really!" Emma snapped, apparently a little too loudly for Jefferson's comfort, for his hand fell hard over her lips again. Resisting the temptation to bite him, Emma settled for glaring at him in the darkness until he slowly released her. "I think I'd rather scatter them _before_ whoever they're waiting for gets here," she said, more quietly.

An inner conflict played itself out on Jefferson's face, and finally he sighed, not sounding in agreement so much as resigned to the fact that Emma was going to do what Emma wanted to do, no matter what he had to say about it. " _Fine_. Go. Scatter. Much good may it do you." He took a step back from her.

Emma started to move down the lane of headstones towards the two mysterious men, then looked over her shoulder at Jefferson. "Are you--?"

"I have your back," he promised, but showed no inclination to remove himself from the shadows. Emma hoped she could believe him.

She wasn't going to creep up on them. She was the Sheriff, and that meant she shouldn't have to sneak around in her own town. Subtlety had never been her strong point, anyway. The fingers of one hand rested near the grip of her gun – just in case – while the other hand pulled her flashlight free. "Hey!" she called out, flicking the light on and shining it at the ground in front of the two men. "This is the Sheriff. What are you—"

Emma didn't have the chance to get the rest of the sentence out. The larger of the two men rushed her. Fortunately, Emma's defensive instincts, well-honed from so many years of chasing down bounties, had not left her; she side-stepped just as he got near her and struck out with one fist, catching him under the jaw. There was still the other to contend with, however, and he got his arm around Emma's throat, very nearly hauling her off of her feet. Emma scrabbled at his arm with one hand, jabbed back at his torso with the butt of her flashlight, and slammed her booted foot down on top of his. He held on determinedly, though, until a sudden force impacted him, forcing him away from her.

Jefferson had covered the distance between his cover and Emma in a few rapid strides. He wasn't letting the first man get back on his feet, delivering a vicious and well-aimed kick at the enormous brute's solar plexus. By the time the second opponent was recovered for another strike, Emma was ready for him.

It wasn't a proper fray; Jefferson and Emma had the advantage over the hooded men, thanks to Emma's quick reflexes and Jefferson's timely intervention. While Emma's defence was practised and calculated, everything she'd learned as a bounty hunter about the swiftest way to immoblise an opponent, Jefferson's attack was nothing short of brutal. Emma knew what he could do in a fight, of course, but only now did she realise that, even in the fury back on that bizarre night in his house, he hadn't really been trying to do serious damage. To impede her, certainly, even to hurt her – but as she heard the sick, wet smash of skull hitting the ground, she knew that if he had wanted to seriously harm her, to kill her, he could have, and easily.

And then, as quickly as it had come up, the menace subsided, as soon as it became apparent than neither of their opponents were going anywhere any time soon – and there was Jefferson again, looking just as he had before the fight – except, perhaps, breathing a little more heavily. Emma was more alarmed by how quickly he could snap back to calm than she was by his fighting in the first place. It must have showed on her face, for when Jefferson looked at her, he gave a little shrug and said, by way of explanation, "I learned a long time ago the best way to fight is fast and nasty. No sense showing off." He nudged one of the groaning brutes with his foot. "Something lugs like this never understand."

In a fit of optimism, Emma pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her hopes were not fulfilled; the screen was blinking pink, as it had for a week. Jefferson was strolling, glancing at the circle of salt. As Emma futilely pushed buttons, praying for a response, Jefferson took the crowbar one of the thugs had discarded and used it to brush a gap in the circle.

"The entire world has gone mad," Emma said, shoving her useless phone back in her pocket and staring down at the unconscious forms of their opponents. It was far from the first time she had thought that in recent weeks.

Jefferson rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. "And here I was just thinking that things felt back to normal."

She sighed. "We're going to need help dragging these two into custody for questioning. Could you go—"

"No." Jefferson fixed her with a hard stare. "I'm not leaving you alone with them."

"Well, I'm not leaving you alone with them, either! What if whoever they were waiting for comes by?"

"I'll take care of it." It was a dark promise, with the shadow coming over his eyes again.

"I don't like this," Emma protested.

"I didn't ask you to like it." He jerked his head towards the street. "Go. The longer you stand here arguing with me, the better the chance of more trouble finding us."

She scowled at him a long moment, but he was right -- and she didn’t have the time to butt heads with him. She could do more good by finding assistance, if he was determined in his obstinacy. She glanced down at the gun, still snapped in its holster at her side, then she looked up at him. He’d had that gun in his hands before, though not by any choice of hers. She never would have imagined willingly handing it over to him again -- but then, she never would have imagined not shooting him on sight when he let himself in through her bedroom window. So many things had changed in recent weeks, and Jefferson seemed, at least, to be fighting on the side of the angels -- so long as those angels kept their promise to protect his beloved daughter. If there was a ploy to this, some scheme to put her at a disadvantage, Emma couldn’t see it. So she unholstered the gun and handed it, grip first, towards Jefferson. “Here.” He took it unquestioningly. “Just in case.”

“Much appreciated.” And there was a softening in his expression as he said it, a flicker of recognition for the trust she was implicitly placing in him with that gesture. There was something slightly mocking, too, that knowing spark of the back of his eyes that so often heated her temper. Whatever its origin, she shook her head, clearing it from her mind, and hesitated only briefly before turning her back on Jefferson. As Emma trotted off, wondering who would be most able to help her at this time of night, Jefferson eased back against a carven monument, crossing one leg over the other, glowering down at the prone figures on the ground, with the gun dangling casually from his fingers.


	2. The second: in which there is an interruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another trip through the window puts unnerving but intriguing thoughts in Emma's head, about the half-mad and fully-maddening man so insistently invading her life.

The second time he came through her window in the middle of the night, there was, at least, a pretense for it. Despite the late hour, Emma was still up, poring over a map – one of his, in fact, generously donated to the cause. She was marking out sites of some of the more unusual magical flare-ups that they had, as yet, traced to no particular cause nor creator. Wild magic, leaking through at the edges, Nova had shyly suggested, and Emma certainly wasn't going to rule the possibility out.

"You looked like you could use some help," he said, uncurling his legs over the windowsill and sliding into the room with all the unnerving grace of a jungle cat.

"What did I tell you about spying?" she scowled.

"That it is an eminently informative and beneficial pastime?" he asked, grinning irreverently.

"Mmm, nope, don't think those were my exact words." She turned back to the map, determined to ignore him. That became more difficult when he stepped up right behind her, not touching, deliberately not touching, but so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off of every inch of him. What made it worse was that she knew he knew precisely what effect his proximity had on her -- as far too many momentary lapses of judgment in the past few weeks had demonstrated. Emma's shoulders drew up slightly, her back tensing, but she gave her head a little shake and rapped her knuckles on the table, determined, if not to ignore his electrifying presence, then at least to pretend as though it didn’t affect her. "Alright, then. You wanted to help. What do you see?"

He was, actually, considering the problem; he just saw no reason why he couldn't do that and torment Emma a little bit at the same time. And so he reached around to gesture at the map, just barely grazing her arm with his hand, just enough to set goosebumps on her skin, casually enough that it _could_ have been an accident. "Well. There's one fairly simple thing."

His fingers traced a line on the map, but Emma didn't follow. "What? They're totally random. One here, one there – not near anyone's houses, they're just… out there."

Jefferson chuckled lightly. "You really are a city girl," he commented. " _Look_. They're moving downstream. That's the path the river takes."

Emma frowned. "They're not happening in the water, though. Or on it. Or on the riverbanks. It's all back in the forest." Not, she noticed, more than half a mile from the river, though.

He shrugged. "You asked what I saw. Whoever or whatever is doing this – it's moving with the flow of the water, for some reason. The earliest incidents were furthest upstream; the most recent, furthest down. Maybe it's in the water and seeping into the trees. Maybe something or someone is drinking a contaminant. Maybe it's someone on a boat. _I_ don't know." He moved his mouth closer to her ear, murmuring, "That's _your_ job to figure out, Sheriff." She wrenched away from him, glaring; he just looked amused. "Or would 'Detective' be more appropriate in this case? Or is it 'Princess' these days?"

"Don't." She held a hand up in a gesture of denial, fingers splayed. "No. Not… Not that. Definitely not that."

He was smirking, in a way that made her want to hit him – except she had the feeling, if she actually did touch him, that wouldn't at all be the outcome. "Ah, but I think that one of the things I might know more about than you is the principle of cognatic primogeniture. Your mother was a queen. Your father was a king. That makes you--” There was a self-satisfied glint in his eyes, not-so-gently mocking. “--a princess."

Emma just gave him a withering look. "Yeah, well, 'Sheriff' will do for now."

"Pity," he drawled, closing the space between them again. Emma stood her ground; she wasn't going to let him back her into a corner in her own damn bedroom. "'Princess' has such a nice ring to it. But then, I suppose I can just stick to your name. _Emma_."

Somehow, when he said it, it didn't sound like a name – it sounded like a charm, a talisman, a summoning. And maybe it was.

He was close, much too close, but then she'd almost gotten accustomed to that lately. He found ways to be near her, even when they were around others, even if only in passing, just enough to brush behind her and set her skin on fire through sheer proximity. Emma had no idea why she reacted to him the way she did, and the only consolation for this absurd fixation as that she seemed to have a similar effect on him. But where it unnerved her, throwing her off-balance, disrupting her typical prickly composure, it seemed to lend him a focus for all his intensity. 

She had known, since the night they had met, that Jefferson was someone who felt whatever he was feeling at a given moment with a violent energy. Unmitigated force or perfect apathy – there was no in-between for him. It was a little frightening, but also, strangely, admirable. Such extremity of emotion ought to have been impossible, yet somehow, it called to Emma, whispering to her that, if she only let herself, she too would be capable of all that and more. But she had always shied away, viewing such consuming fervor as dangerous. It led to attachment, and that couldn’t be trusted. Jefferson, though, immersed himself in it. Perhaps he simply couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was part and parcel of the madness that had cracked his mind and, Emma suspected, never fully healed.

As his eyes searched hers, though, Emma had to wonder if that might not be, in this rapidly unravelling world, the sanest way to be.

"You are a stubborn little thing, _Emma_ ," he said. "Even now, even with everything you know, you still _cling_ to what's familiar."

"You're one to talk," she reminded him, a little tartly. "Or am I mistaking how well you adjusted to life in Storybrooke?"

His lips twitched briefly, then he conceded, "Touché. But I had my previous life and everything I loved ripped away from me. You, on the other hand – You've been given so much more than you had before."

Emma wanted to make a sharp retort, to ask how grateful she was meant to be for a new world that had involved, in the space of a few weeks, a dragon, a werewolf that she couldn't even kill because it was a friend, black magic, vengeful spirits, and a number of other bewilderments that had once been safely confined between pages or on-screen. But she thought of Henry, and Snow, and Charming – and she knew he had a point. The curse had taken Jefferson's family away from him. Breaking it had given Emma hers back, no matter how else it had upturned her world.

As though he could read all of this on her face, Jefferson went on. "You should be making the most of it, Emma. Why keep trying to be the person you were before any of this happened?" His fingers were drifting over her shoulder, toying with a lock of her hair, and she didn't know why she wasn't stopping him, why she didn't want him to stop. "Somehow… I'm not sure you liked her all that much, anyway."

She stiffened, offended. "How can you—"

"I _know_ ," Jefferson said, before she could object further. He tucked a spiral of golden hair behind her ear, then drew his fingers down the side of her neck, curving around to the front, trailing gently over her collarbone. "I know what it is, to… disappoint yourself with the person you've become. To look in the mirror and want to be someone else. And that is… not an easy thing to do, as no doubt you've found in the past. But _now_ … oh, Emma." That time, her name was a sigh. "You have the opportunity to create yourself anew." His bent knuckle touched under her chin, tilting her face up towards his a little more. "And that is an extraordinary opportunity, Emma. You ought to make the most of it."

He hardly had to lean in any further to capture her lips in a kiss – a kiss like the dozens of others he'd stolen from her (and she from him) in the past few weeks, snatched in those shading half-moments after someone else left the room but before another entered it. A kiss like all those they never talked about, never acknowledged – and yet, a kiss not like those at all, because no one was going to enter this room. They were in no danger of discovery, and no one was going to interrupt them. And so it was not light and teasing, easily disengaged from, only cheekily passionate. This kiss consumed, white-hot and scorching, breaking over Emma with a fervour that was almost frightening. His arm locked around her waist, his hand pressing at the small of her back, pulling her hard against him. She could have surrendered to it, to the delicious torment of his touch, his insistent plunder of her mouth. His tongue probed and coaxed, drawing her out of herself, and her hands slid up, around his neck, accepting and encouraging. She could have lost herself to it, could have fallen into him and blocked out the rest of the world, only for a few minutes –

And then something exploded outside the window.

Jefferson and Emma both startled back, turning to look. Something off in the forest was burning a brilliant cyan-blue, the flames twisting and whorling up into the night like no fire Emma had ever seen. Once, the sight would have been bewildering, even terrifying. Now Emma just sighed, shoulders drooping, resigned to another sleepless night. _'And not for any good reason,'_ some treacherous part of her mind mocked her.

"Something else for your map, I take it?" Jefferson asked.

"Come _on_ ," Emma said, already grabbing her jacket and bolting for the door, not sure if she should curse the interruption or be grateful for it.


	3. The third: in which certain things can no longer be ignored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jefferson finds he can't stay away, and Emma discovers she doesn't want him to.

The third time he came through her window, there was really no reason at all, except that he wanted her, more than he could bear. The kisses he kept stealing in those little windows that opportunity provided him didn't satisfy, could never sate – they only stoked the fire. And from the way she'd grabbed his shirt collar the last time, distinctly disheveling him in the brief moment just before Snow had, all oblivion, trotted back into the room, he rather suspected she was experiencing a similar frustration.

She wasn't in her room when he pulled himself through the window, and it afforded Jefferson a moment to look around, to appreciate some details that had not been apparent through his telescopic observations. It looked more like a proper home and less like a rented room than it had when she’d first come to Storybrooke, with almost no material goods to her name -- save, it seemed, for a rather fine collection of leather jackets. Now there were books, papers, a card from Henry, a hairbrush, discarded mail -- all the detritus of a normal life, plus the accumulated trappings of her newfound magical heritage.

Emma came back in a moment later, evidently having been getting ready for bed, dressed only in panties and a T-shirt that barely skimmed her hips. Whatever it was she had on her mind, it took her a few seconds after coming back into her room to realise that she was not alone there.

"Jefferson!" she hissed, taking a step back as soon as she saw him. "For the love of – you can't just _do_ this—"

He actually looked down, at her bare feet, rather than at anything more enticing. His little shrug might have been endearing if he hadn't just let himself into her bedroom. Through the window. Again. While she was barely dressed. "I fancied a visit."

She folded her arms over her chest, frowning at him. "Some people use _doors_."

That muscle in his cheek twitched, threatening a smile. "Well, this _is_ more effective."

It took effort to affect a commanding tone when one was missing pants, but Emma did her best. "Why are you here?"

"I _needed_ to see you." He looked up, straight into her eyes, and there was, echoing his words, a near-palpable urgency, raw and burning. She realised only then that he looked more disheveled than usual: cuffs undone, hair uncoiffed, missing the usual cravat around his throat. The scar that ran a ragged line around his neck was barely visible in the dim light, but still, it surprised Emma to know it was exposed. She had not seen it since the night they'd met, at least not in more than accidental glimpses; he always took care to cover it, though whether for his own comfort, to avoid alarming anyone, or just to avoid impertinent questions, she wasn't sure. The top button of his shirt was undone as well, and something about that set a heat on Emma's cheeks.

"Why?" she asked, vaguely annoyed at herself for how breathless she sounded.

"You know why," he said, crossing the room, so swiftly that Emma was startled into taking a half step back. Only that much, however; she wouldn't cede any further. "Come now, Emma, we both know you're not the type to play coy."

"I'm not playing coy—"

"Then why are you asking questions you already know the answers to?" 

She didn’t have a response to that; she couldn’t very well tell him that she was stalling, unwilling to face the implications of her quickened heartbeat or the frisson of restless energy his nearness sent coursing through her. It made no sense, the strength of her reaction to this impossible man -- this infuriating man, with his total disregard for boundaries, and with that keen edge, of violence or madness, always glistening with potential just behind his eyes.

His hands ghosted over her shoulders and down her arms, skimming feather-light over her skin. He leaned closer to her, and though Emma knew she should shove him away, she felt herself yearning for the solid contact he was denying her. "Tell me you don't want this," he breathed in a gentle challenge, his lips drifting over her cheek, her ear, her hair, barely touching, just enough to stir her senses, to make every part of her body acutely aware of him. "Tell me, if you haven't been aching for this as badly as I have."

It occurred to Emma that he was actually asking permission, not merely teasing or tormenting her. It was in her hands, in her determination, to surrender to the sweet madness that had been stirring for so long, or to send him back out the window. She knew what she should do, what was the rational thing to do. For all that he seemed to have joined the side of the angels for the moment, this man was still potentially dangerous. She knew that, but she couldn't quiet the other, less rational voice, the one calling her attention to the ache of desire she felt whenever he was around. He was here, he wanted her, and he was offering the kind of indulgence she had denied herself for too long – and Emma wanted, so badly, to forget her responsibilities, if only for a little while, to give herself over to passion and pleasure. And so she nodded.

That little bob of her head was all the encouragement Jefferson needed. His mouth found hers, hot and hungry and more than half-desperate. The delicate strum of desire which had been vibrating for so long snapped in a rush of primal force, and Emma, feverish, pulled at the lower edge of his shirt, needing more, more contact, more heat, more of him. Jefferson was only too willing to oblige.

Both hands at her waist, Jefferson guided her backwards until she was pressed up against the door. She felt his insistent touch, sliding up beneath the edge of her T-shirt, moving along the contours of hips and waist and ribs as though memorising them, slow and deliberate. His thumbs traced the lower curve of her breasts, and she shivered, realizing only then how sensitive certain parts of her skin were, how long it had been since a lover's touch had woken them. It might have been embarrassing, had she not dimly been aware, somewhere at the back of her mind, that it had likely been even longer for him – not that it seemed to have let any rust settle on his skills.

The man kissed with his whole body, kissed like it was nourishment for him. One of his legs insinuated itself between hers, his thigh nudging intimately at their juncture, and Emma could not keep herself from arching into the pressure, delighting at the little thrill the sensation caused. Jefferson noticed, and grinned against her mouth. "Why, Sheriff Swan," he murmured, lips drifting across her jaw, down her throat, "is there something you need?"

She gave a little growl in response, her hands darting for the buttons of his shirt, eager to pluck it open. He grabbed both her wrists and slammed them back against the door, then pressed his forehead to hers, the dark heat shining in his eyes again. He shook his head slightly, then drew her arms up above her head, so he could pinion both wrists with one hand. His grip was hard, but not so much that Emma couldn't have broken it if she'd really put some effort into it – but she found, strangely, that she didn't want to, that she would much rather see where this was going, what he intended.

His free hand stroked her cheek gently, gliding over the curve just below her eye, slipping back behind her ear and down her neck, whisper-light and so tantalizing. His lips replaced his hand at her throat, teasing and suckling, drawing her skin between his teeth. Emma found herself forgetting to breathe, too overwhelmed with the delight of it. His fingers found the edge of her T-Shirt and pulled the well-worn cotton up. Her nipples peaked when suddenly exposed to the air, tightening even further into hard little buds when his thumb began circling one of them almost lazily. He kissed her again, drawing her lower lip briefly into his mouth with a little tug that seemed to shoot through Emma straight to the core. His hand moved to her other breast, rolling her nipple gently between two fingers, and then he released her hands so that he could tug the shirt off entirely, tossing it behind him. Emma let her arms fall around his shoulders as he dipped his head to her chest.

His mouth hovered just above one of the aching buds for a moment, and then his tongue flicked out, quick and light, wetting just the tip that jutted out towards him. Emma inhaled sharply, then released her breath in a pleasured sigh when he did it again. She threaded her fingers through his hair, finding it surprisingly soft and lightly springy. As he teased and suckled, alternating tugs and draws with maddeningly gentle flicks, Emma closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the door, revelling in the sensual glory of it. His hands roved downward, sliding over the plane of her stomach, then curling with a possessive grip over the curve of her hips.

Jefferson's thumbs hooked underneath the edge of her panties, and he knelt as he drew them down. His hands slid over her legs, tickling wickedly at the backs of her knees. He caressed her calves and ankles as she stepped out of the garment, and then his fingers slipped back up, pressing at the insides of her thighs.

The first touch, a light, probing stroke between her legs, felt like it sent an electric shock through her entire body. Jefferson grinned, feeling her shiver as he delved further into the silken heat between her lips, already wet, already wanting him. He moved slowly at first, not so much for gentleness’s sake as to savour the moment, the sensation of her against his fingertips, the ragged way she was breathing. When his thumb grazed over her clit, her gasp and shudder tugged at something unnameable inside him, a too-long-unstoked passion that threatened now to overwhelm him.

His eyes stayed fixed on her face while his hands worked in between her legs, and something about that made Emma feel all the more shameless. She could hardly bear the intensity of his gaze, but every time she shut her eyes or turned her head away, she felt herself drawn back, transfixed by his unrelenting focus. Jefferson was a practised watcher, and he delighted in seeing Emma's body react to his touch – the twitch of her hips, the uneven rise and fall of her breath, the red flush growing hot on her cheeks, the way her lips parted in a little flutter of breath when he surprised her by stroking somewhere new.

Emma found herself gripping the doorknob tightly just to stay upright, fighting the instinct to pound on the door, her last shreds of conscious awareness reminding her not to make enough noise to wake anyone else in the house. When his fingers slipped deep inside her, pressing so coaxingly at the pulsing center of her being, white-hot and aching, Emma had to clamp her own hand over her mouth to stifle herself. Jefferson caught his lower lip between his teeth briefly, then nudged her thighs slightly further apart. Emma was panting slightly, dizzied from having been so close to release and yet denied it. "You—Why—" she weakly protested.

The why became apparent rather quickly. Jefferson kissed a line along her inner thigh, and then his lips closed over the aching pearl, throbbing and exposed. Emma drew in her breath in a sharp hiss, only barely managing to catch a scream in her throat and gulp it back down. The hand not gripping the doorknob fell on his shoulder, nails pressing into his skin. One little suckle was all it took to send Emma spiralling over the edge in a blurry haze of ecstatic glory. Her knees buckled underneath her, but Jefferson's arms had slipped up, cupping her buttocks and locking fast, to keep her upright. His mouth kept working, coaxing shivers and shudders out of her, his tongue slipping between her folds, drinking her in, pressing her towards that rapturous precipice again before she had even had a chance to float down from the first. He lapped deep and teased lightly in alternation, building her close to a peak and then easing off, just enough to keep her a breath away from the ultimate glory. It was a sweet torment, utterly maddening, and somewhere in the back of Emma’s mind, she thought, _‘Well, of course, he would be.’_

After dancing so near the edge for so long, the eventual breaking wave of ecstasy took her by surprise. As the ripples of it continued to quake through her limbs, Jefferson kissed her thigh, her stomach, then rose, drawing her away from the door, his arms tight and strong around her middle. "Bed," he whispered, and nipped at her ear. 

Somehow, Emma managed to stagger over to it, scarcely believing that her legs were willing to carry her. She sank into the comfort of the mattress, drawing slow, deep breaths in a pleasant haze of endorphins. Jefferson stood by the edge of the bed and began to undress, and Emma drank in the sight of him, exposed inch by inch as he unbuttoned his shirt. There was a dusting of hair on his chest, not too thick, and Emma longed to touch it, to see if it was as downy-soft as it looked.

It was madness, and she knew it, but she found herself unexpectedly happy to drown in it. It was a strange relief, surrendering to the tension that had burned like an electric wire between them for so long. She thought, for a brief moment, of the improbability of this moment -- of the insanity of it, letting herself be vulnerable to a man like Jefferson. But then he was naked, and his jutting erection quite diverted her attention from any such reflections.

Emma reached out for him as he drew near, her fingers curling around the velvet-steel shaft. A hitch in his breath and a little guttural moan betrayed his composure, and that pleased Emma -- to know that he was capable of losing control as well, that he, too, was subject to being overpowered by these sensations.

When he sank onto the bed next to her, he nudged her onto her stomach, and at first Emma thought it was better that way – less intimate, less personal – less something she would have to own up to in the morning. He slid a hand up her back, admiringly, tangling his fingers in her hair before sweeping the mass of golden curls over her shoulder. This would make it easier to dismiss tomorrow, she told herself, easier to pass off as a crazy impulse, a casual surrender to baser instincts. But when he slid inside her with a little groan, sinking himself to the hilt in an agonisingly slow motion, his body pressed firmly against her back, one arm locked around her chest, holding her up from the bed, his lips trailing over her shoulders and exposed neck – then Emma realised how wrong she'd been. Every inch of him was insinuated with every inch of her, as intimately as could be, and when he started to move, rocking against her, setting her newly afire with spasms of pleasure, she knew there would be no denying this in the morning. How she would deal with it, she had no idea, but she knew she would never be able to pretend it hadn't happened, would never be able to look at him again without feeling the residual heat.

“Emma, Emma...” he murmured in her ear as he moved inside her, and this time it sounded less like a charm, more like -- Emma didn’t even know. Not a prayer, not from a man like this, but an invocation of something beyond what magic she knew. Her back arched, her hips rising to meet his with each thrust -- but he was driving the pace, keeping it so slow, so deliberate, even though it had to be as much a torture to him as to her. Every nerve in her body was hot and aching, screaming out for more action, more friction, more pressure -- but at the same time, the almost-lazy strokes were dragging over all the right places, stoking the pooling warmth at her core, gently pushing her to higher peaks, the searing tension twisting and tightening inside her.

And then, so suddenly, the thread snapped in a sudden rush of ecstasy -- Emma drew in her breath sharply, and would have cried out, but Jefferson seemed to sense that, too, his instincts no less acute for his own sensual distraction, and his hand clamped hard over her mouth. As another wave of pleasure crashed over her, she half-sobbed against his palm, then bit down on the pad at the base of his thumb.

Again and again he drove her to the peak, his pace quickening, the thrusts coming mercilessly hard and fast, then dragging slow and tender. His hands were everywhere, gripping her hips, caressing her breasts, tangling in her hair, sliding down her stomach to tease her clit. When his own climax hit, it was with a low, growling groan and his fingers squeezing around her upper arm hard enough to bruise.

He withdrew and fell to his side, and Emma rolled to face him, still trying to catch her breath. Able now to see his face, she could tell just how thoroughly spent he was, so drained of energy that it was a struggle for him to lift his hand to stroke her cheek. "Next time," he said, "you're sending Henry out for a sleepover or something." He leaned over to kiss her, and nipped playfully at her lower lip. "I want to hear you scream."

“What makes you think there’ll be a next time?” Emma asked, but the threat was feeble, its force blunted by the blush still gracing her cheeks and the sated smile living on her lips.

“Oh, there will be, Emma,” Jefferson said, his thumb tracing a line underneath her jaw. “Of that, I am sure.” He got up and started to dress himself, and Emma stretched out on the bed, watching him, appreciating the subtle interplay of muscles and skin. His chest and back, she noticed, were a thatch of scars. She wondered what the stories behind them were; she wondered if she wanted to know.

He kissed her again before going to the window, and it should have been brief, a swift farewell before he disappeared back into the night, but neither of them could bring themselves to cut it off so quickly. They lingered, tasting each other, feeling the tug of attraction that had set them on such a collision course to begin with. When Jefferson did pull away at last, it was with a rueful smile and a gentle tweak of her hair. “You really ought to be careful about this window,” Jefferson teased, hitching his leg over the sill. “Never know what sort of riff-raff might get in.” 

Emma quirked an eyebrow at him. "Why do you think I never bolted the damn thing shut?"

He grinned, and was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, please check out [my blog](http://cassmorriswrites.com)! I also write original fiction, and my debut novel will be out January 2018.


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